This specification relates to towing hitches.
Connecting a trailer and a towing vehicle can be a very tedious and time consuming task. Sometimes it can take up a significant amount of time, e.g., twenty minutes, before one can align a trailer and a towing vehicle so ball and coupler can connect. The task is complicated when one does not have assistance of a person standing behind the towing vehicle to monitor the alignment progress.
There are many different types of towing hitches, but each has drawbacks. The concept of attaching a trailer to a vehicle is to put a small metal ball or hook into a fitted metal coupler while operating a vehicle in reverse. To get the ball within a close region of the coupler is not terribly difficult; however, if the ball is offset as much as an inch, it can cause the operator of the vehicle to have to start the entire process over. It is desirable to have a hitch that can help with that extra few inches and make this process exponentially quicker and easier.
Prior towing hitches provided limited degrees of freedom of movement to help with the connecting process, and could easily come out of alignment if a driver accidentally went too far in one direction or another. Thus, there is a need for a towing hitch that will assist the vehicle operator to connect any item they would choose to tow with the vehicle with little or now assistance, and which is also tolerant to misalignments.